To Fly
by CourtingMischief
Summary: Dying and being reborn is a familiar concept in the realm of fiction. Having that actually happen to you, is an entirely different story, especially if you end up in the branch family of the Hyuuga clan, knowing full-well that soon enough you're going to have a lovely seal branded onto your forehead - that is until the Kumo-shinobi broke into my house. - Slight AU! SI! Hyuuga!OC
1. Prologue 1

**Disclaimer:** _I do not own the Naruto franchise in any way. This was simply written for my own amusement and I do not make a profit off of this in any way. I also did not invent the concept of self-inserts._

 _This is just an idea that I've had for a while now and I wanted to write it dow. I hope some of you will find this enjoyable._

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I don't really remember what happened after I died. Actually, I can't really remember just how I died in the first place. I just knew that I had once existed and that I died and that I was consequentially supposed to be dead.

Because of that it took me quite some time to realize that I was, in fact, not dead at all - though that might have had something to do with the fact that a baby's brain was not yet meant to mull over topics like cycles of reincarnation, the existence of an afterlife or anything of that sort. Actually it seemed like my baby mind had just shoved my adult consciousness into the furthest corner of my mind, to stay there until my baby brain was developed enough to be able to properly deal with the complexity of adult-thoughts. In short this meant that the rational, adult part of me just zoned out most of the time, letting baby-me take over.

Looking back I must say, I am incredibly grateful for the general hazy fog, that covered my developing mind during the beginning of my new existence, since it left me with little room for any sort of existential crisis that I would surely have undergone otherwise. Instead it let me focus on the much more important aspects of life - like sleeping and cuddling into the small warm body that I was sharing my crib with. Moreover that ensured that I couldn't really remember what was going on around me most of the time, which was nice, considering that I really didn't feel any imminent need to remember breastfeeding or diaper changing.

What still stood out to me about my new beginning though, was the ever present _other one_. We were always together and even if the people around us needed to separate _the other one_ and me to take care of us individually, we were never apart for very long. It took me a while to realize that this meant that I had a twin - a brother, as I would learn later. The concept of having a sibling was very strange to me, as far as I can remember I was an only child before I somehow died, but the additional presence was very welcome. His constant presence and companionship gave me something to focus on and to interact with - especially once we had both learned how to do more than just lie on our backs.

I do not remember my new mother. I was told later that she had passed away a few weeks after giving birth to us. Apparently she had always been a bit frail and the stress of having twins had seemingly been to much for her. At some point I must have decided not to focus too much on that. Thinking about what could have been and what once was made me sad and it made me remember that I had once had other parents that I would most likely never see again. Even if I could no longer recall their faces or their names, thinking about the parents and the mother I no longer had still filled me with a cold and empty feeling that I didn't like at all.

However I do remember my new father and I adored him - even if I missed my old family, my baby mind actually didn't really let me dwell on that too much for the most part, not when this man and my brother made me feel so _safe_ and _warm_ and _loved_.

Our father spent a lot of time with us. He would hold us, talk to us, play with us, take us out into the garden or carry us around the house (or was it a mansion? maybe it just seemed so big because I was so small…) to soothe us whenever we were crying. Really, I don't think that I was very prone to crying - at least not this time around - but my brother was, and some part of me that was undeniably and irreversibly connected to him, made me upset whenever he was, forcing our father to deal with two crying babies at once rather often.

It took me until sometime between having learnt to roll from my back onto my belly and back again - a delightful way to spend your afternoon, really - and learning to sit up on my own, to learn mine and my brother's names - before then it had simply never occurred to me to puzzle about that: My name was _Haruhi_ and my brother was called _Neji_.

Also another person had entered our lives more frequently. It was a man. A man who looked like my father, but wasn't my father. Apparently I wasn't the only one with a twin in this family. My uncle's name was Hiashi and I often heard him call my father Hizashi - and REALLY all those names should have tripped me off way sooner than they actually did (again I attribute that lack of attention to crucial details to my fuzzy baby mind)

It must have been when Neji and I were a little over a year old, when something terrible and _evil_ roused us from our sleep. Back then I did not know what that was but I felt a terrible weight settle over me that made it near impossible to breathe. Something powerful and frightening and angry and so purely evil. I wanted to cry, to scream - I really did - for my father to come and hold us and make the terrible feeling go away! But I couldn't. I was too afraid to do anything but lie still, petrified, crying silent tears and waiting - because if it heard us it would surely come and kill us. At some point our father came to us and took us into his arms.

Even weeks after the Kyuubi attack, Neji and I were still terrified of any loud noise and we simply refused - or rather could not - fall asleep without our father holding and soothing us.

Some time after that - _nii-san_ had just started to walk properly, while I was still a bit wobbly on my legs and could only manage a couple of steps before I'd fall over (but I was determined to catch up as soon as possible!) - _otou-san_ took us to another part of our home (our home is really big) and I recognized it as the part where our uncle lived. We entered one of the rooms and were sat down on a carpet. Neji immediately flopped down and buried his face in the fluffy fabric and since it looked like he was having fun, I decided to join in. Because we were so busy with the carpet and ourselves, it took Neji and me a while to realize that someone else had sat down next to us. It was our uncle and he was holding a small bundle in his arms.

At this point in my life a huge part of the fog that surrounded my mind had already cleared up and I could proudly say that I generally understood what people were trying to tell me - even if I had yet to master the art of speaking… forming words is hard, okay! - therefore I actually understood what my uncle told us next. And it was a sentence that would change my life forever.

„ _This is your cousin Hinata."_

Up until this point I had not even thought about questioning the names of the people around me. Or the fact that some of our caretakers were wearing weird forehead protectors with a spiral symbol etched into the metal plate. Or even the fact that every single person I had met so far, even my own father and brother - and me too, but I had not looked into a mirror yet - had pearly-white eyes with no visible pupil but were obviously not blind, judging by their behavior and the fact that I could see.

But for some reason, the fact that my little cousin was named _Hinata_ \- _a place in the sun_ \- changed everything. Something just clicked into place. It was as if she was the last missing piece and only now that I had collected all the pieces and completed the puzzle could I see the entire picture.

By this point I had sort of accepted the concept of reincarnation as a fact of life. The idea was still somewhat strange, but both baby-me and adult-me had agreed that it was not worth it to dwell on the issue. I was just one year old, I would certainly not be able to figure out the meaning of life and the mysteries of after-life and there were much better and more important things that I could focus my energy on.

But the idea of being reborn into a completely different - _fictional_ \- universe. A universe where they trained their children to become deadly killing machines! A universe where they branded little children of the branch family of the noble Hyuuga clan with the _Kago no Tori no Juin_ \- _the caged bird curse seal -_ that they could use to destroy your brain cells! A seal that I would receive when this little girl - my cousin - turned three!

The reality of my situation began to dawn on me, that I was somehow in the _Naruto_ universe and that I would be branded with a seal that could be used to torture me and that I would probably die before I even reached my teens, because somehow the people in this world thought that giving children sharp throwing knifes and all kinds of other deadly weaponry was a good idea - and don't even get me started on the jutsu! Not to mention that there was a war coming and countless people would die and... and Neji would die! My brother would die and I had no idea if I could do anything to prevent that... if I even should... had I already changed things? Were we all doomed just because I somehow ended up here? And even if I hadn't changed anything yet... would I even live long enough to make any sort of impact?!

At some point I must have started to hyperventilate as I continued to stare at the sleeping baby in my uncle's arms - my uncle who was the head of the _Hyuuga clan_! And because the thought of reincarnation and multiple universes and child-soldiers and torture was simply too much for me to handle at any given moment, baby-me helpfully decided to take over again and I did the only sensible thing that anyone could do in such a situation: I started crying.


	2. Prologue 2

The first meeting with our little cousin ended in a way that I am sure neither my father nor my uncle could have predicted. My mental-breakdown-induced crying made Neji upset - because if his sister is crying then surely that means that there is something to be upset about. Our combined wailing woke our little cousin from her sleep and since we probably scared her to death with all the noise we were making, she too started crying. In the end this first meeting between cousins was cut short and we were promptly separated again. I believe it took otou-san the better part of the afternoon to calm both Neji and me down again and it surely would have taken him even longer, if we hadn't been so exhausted that simply we just fell asleep at some point.

Coming to terms with the fact that I now apparently lived in a universe that should be fictional and where children were expected to kill other children before they even finished going through puberty, was not easy.

For a time I entertained the thought that maybe I could simply choose not to become a shinobi at all, to stay out of fighting and maybe prolong my life that way, but then I remembered that Neji was going to die in the war and if wanted to have any chance of changing that, then I would need to be able to fight (I had already made up my mind that that was one part of the original timeline that I simply could not allow to happen).

Turns out I really needn't have bothered with thinking about alternative career options, because only a few of weeks after the _Hinata incident_ \- once I too could stand and walk rather safely - our father started us on ninja training - or rather pre-ninja exercises for one-and-a-half-year-old toddlers. Apparently children in the branch family are not given much of a choice for what they're going to be when they grow up.

Mostly our _training_ consisted of a lot of different stretches to help with our flexibility, balance exercises and a lot of running around and playing with some of the other children of the branch families (which defiantly helped to build up speed and agility, because if Hyuuga Momoko caught you, which she almost always did, you'd be tickled mercilessly). Additionally more interaction with young children helped with our speech development, because while otou-san could pretty much read our minds by now and Neji and I somehow always managed to communicate with just looks and gestures and the occasional babbled word in between - whether that was a twin thing or simply a result of us spending every waking minute together, I really don't know - the other children were not privy to our secret twin-communication, which in turn forced us to communicate through words more and more. We were also taught how to fall safely, a skill that came in very handy with all the running around that we did.

Speaking of other children. Despite the original meeting with Hinata not going according to plan, our father and our uncle still insisted that we'd meet our cousin on a regular basis and even though none of those rather one-sided playdates - Hinata really couldn't do much other than lying on the carpet and babbling at us just yet - resulted in any breakdowns like the first one did, I still remained cautiously weary of her, clinging to my brother and forcing him to engage in play with me instead of paying attention to the baby. The rational part of my mind knew that this behavior was stupid. Hinata was just a child and a really cute one at that. There was no reason to be afraid of her, she had never done anything to me, other than being a trigger that resulted in a mental breakdown, but that wasn't really her fault. And so I tried to reason with myself, that I should at least try to look past the first impression.

Over time I actually grew to like her, but every time I saw her, there was this fear inside of me that she could maybe trigger other memories of things that I really didn't want to know - I did not want to know what was going to happen! Because realistically there was no way that I could stop what was to come. I had no way of influencing the actions of people like Uchiha Itachi, Shimura Danzo, Orochimaru or even Uchiha Madara. But I'd still blame myself for all the death that they and so many others would cause.

The fact that she would - sort of - be the reason why I'd have a torture seal stuck to my forehead rather soon did nothing to endear her to me either.

Our second birthday marked a rather huge milestone for nii-san and me. Not only were now were we now both able to communicate in coherent sentences (most of the time), but this also marked the beginning of the ‚second stage' of our _pre-ninja program for toddlers:_ our father started us on our first chakra exercises. After our morning routine of stretches, otou-san told us to sit down and close our eyes. He sat down in front of us and placed one finger a few centimeters above my belly button. It took me only a few moments to understand what he was trying to do.

I was aware of the existence of chakra in this world, but not just because of the memories that Hinata had triggered. In this world, the concept that everything was filled with energy that could be used and manipulated, was just a fact of life and growing up in a compound full of shinobi that specialized in techniques that required very careful and precise chakra manipulation, meant that you would hear people talking about chakra pretty much every day.

Despite that I had never payed too much attention to the chakra _inside my own body_. It was just there. It was part of me and as such I wasn't really actively aware of it. But that was exactly what out father was trying to show us. He was using what I assumed to be tiny impulses of his own chakra to create minute disturbances in how my chakra flowed through the coils in my tummy area (a technique that was certainly completely harmless, because otou-san would never hurt us, which was one of the many things baby-me had imprinted in my adult-mind). And really that little irregularity was all it took to make me notice the warm energy that seemed to be most concentrated in my belly region and in my head, but spread out throughout my entire body.

But the moment otou-san stopped the impulses and pulled his hand away, everything went back to normal, the flow of my chakra evened out again and was nothing more than a pleasantly warm feeling.

So from this day onward, we spent a good portion of every day meditating and trying to just find the chakra inside of us (without our fathers help) because without acute awareness of your own chakra system, there was no use in getting started on any other exercises.

On the other hand, we were also started on our academic education. Our mornings were no longer spent just playing with the toys in our room. Instead we now had one hour of lessons where we were slowly taught the basics of reading and writing. Because we were still so young, the lessons were broken up into four 15 minute blocks, with long breaks in between, that we mostly spent either playing or napping. While learning to speak had come rather naturally, learning how to write in _Hiragana_ , _Katakana_ and _Kanji_ was tedious and exhausting. But reading and writing were rather essential life skills, so there was really nothing I could do but learn and endure.

And like that, we were eased into a training routine. We did some stretches before breakfast and afterwards we spent the morning slowly but surely learning how to read and write. After lunch we had several hours of guided chakra meditation and after that we were allowed to spend the rest of the afternoon running around and playing with the other children of the branch families.

It was through this routine, that I first began to notice how different Neji and I were from _Hinata-sama._ Our schedule kept us busy during the week, but on weekends we were often brought the main families house, to spend some time with our cousin. She was still just a baby that had recently started to crawl, but she had an army of servants (branch family members) that waited on her every second of the day. Once, Neji had had the gall to ask, if Hinata-chan could come to the gardens with us to play with the other children. A servant had promptly informed him that _Hinata-sama_ would do no such thing and that it would be much nicer and more fun if we stayed inside, where there was no risk of getting hurt. She had delivered this speech with such a stern look on her face and in such a way that left no room for argument, that we had never dared to ask again. I didn't know if this was how _Hinata-sama_ would have to spend the rest of her childhood: in a safety bubble, so that nothing bad (or exciting) could ever happen to her, but to me being heiress seemed very lonely and that made me feel bad for blaming her for things that she had no control over.

In general our lives progressed in relative peace and while our daily routine was sometimes adjusted to make room for more advanced training exercises or prolonged study times, at the end of the day we were always allowed to just be children. But one thing in particular became very clear to me very soon.

Neji was a genius.

He was quicker at memorizing words and characters than I was, he advanced from simple chakra meditation to his first low-level chakra control exercises almost two months before I did and he showed so much aptitude that he was allowed to move on to learn the first set of katas that were required to eventually learn the _Juken_ \- Gentle Fist - with the older Hyuuga children, only half a year after we first started our chakra-awareness training.

He was so much better than me at seemingly everything and he made it look so easy.

* * *

 _ **Just for your information:**_

 _I will defiantly not be able to keep on uploading multiple chapters per day, but I have the first 4-5 chapters written out as notes already and I'm feeling inspired. These first chapters could more or less be seen as the "prologue" and I intend for the individual chapters to get longer once we get to "main story"._

 _Also there will be what could probably be called some darker themes in this story (at least in specific parts), but I will hopefully not forget to put some warnings at the beginnings of those chapters. But then again, Naruto is a series about child assassins and I did rate this story M just in case, what did you expect?_

 _Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed and feedback would be very welcome._


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